| The first excerpt represents the element of Air. It speaks of mental influences and the process of thought, and is drawn from Puck of Pook's Hill by Rudyard Kipling: they'd say, "Hic-haec-hoc, " till I fell asleep. Yes. The valley
was as full o' forges and fineries as a May shaw o'
cuckoos. All gone to grass now!'
'What did they make?' said Dan.
'Guns for the King's ships - and for others. Serpentines
and cannon mostly. When the guns were cast, down
would come the King's Officers, and take our plough-
oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here's one of the
first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!'
He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed
them a young man's head. Underneath was written:
|
The second excerpt represents the element of Fire. It speaks of emotional influences and base passions, and is drawn from The Talisman by Walter Scott: found thee a tongue, that which thou hast seen me do"--so saying,
she threw the Soldan's letter on the ground, and placed her foot
upon it--"and say to him, that Edith Plantagenet scorns the
homage of an unchristened pagan."
With these words she was about to shoot from the knight, when,
kneeling at her feet in bitter agony, he ventured to lay his hand
upon her robe and oppose her departure.
"Heard'st thou not what I said, dull slave?" she said, turning
short round on him, and speaking with emphasis. "Tell the heathen
Soldan, thy master, that I scorn his suit as much as I despise
the prostration of a worthless renegade to religion and chivalry
|
| The third excerpt represents the element of Water. It speaks of pure spiritual influences and feelings of love, and is drawn from Selected Writings of Guy De Maupassant by Guy De Maupassant: The theory of the mean of truth on one side, as the foundation of
the subject,--"the humble truth," as he termed it at the
beginning of "Une Vie,"--and of the agonizing of beauty on the
other side, in composition, determines the whole use that
Maupassant made of his literary gifts. It helped to make more
intense and more systematic that dainty yet dangerous pessimism
which in him was innate. The mid- dle-class personage, in
wearisome society like ours, is always a caricature, and the
happenings are nearly always vulgar. When one studies a great
number of them, one finishes by looking at humanity from the
angle of disgust and despair. The philosophy of the romances and
|
The fourth excerpt represents the element of Earth. It speaks of physical influences and the impact of the unseen on the visible world, and is drawn from Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy: "We struck down across, d'ye see, Mr. Wildeve, and she
went round by the path."
"And I see the young bride's little head!" said Grandfer,
peeping in the same direction, and discerning Thomasin,
who was waiting beside her aunt in a miserable and awkward way.
"Not quite settled in yet--well, well, there's plenty
of time."
Wildeve made no reply; and probably feeling that the sooner
he treated them the sooner they would go, he produced
a stone jar, which threw a warm halo over matters at once.
"That's a drop of the right sort, I can see,"
Return of the Native |
